Raven's Song

Monsters

Tylor wasn't in school on Monday. I sat in anatomy staring at the door, hoping that he was just coming late to keep up his side of the deal, but he didn't come through the door when the tardy bell rang. He didn't show up when Mr. Alberts was explaining the quiz for the following day. Tylor hadn't sent me a text. My texts to him went unanswered. I stared at my phone, waiting for the three dots to pop up or for it to be marked as read, but neither happened.

And I hated that I was the girl waiting for a guy to text her. We weren't anything, probably not even friends, but he'd held onto my hand the entire drive to my house. I had thought that had meant something. He'd probably just been comforting me, and I had misinterpreted it. That made me feel even worse. Because I was becoming that girl. I'd worked hard on not becoming that girl, but it'd happened. I hadn't even noticed.

I sat by myself and made notecards for the quiz. I thought about making a second set for Tylor, but I knew he wouldn't have needed them. I was catching on that he didn't really need me to tutor him in anything but English. He was better at the other subjects than I was, often correcting me.

Crossing out an incorrect definition, I cursed myself. He was just amusing me. Letting me think that I wasn't a charity that he was giving his money to. Hoping that I wouldn't have figured it out. Toying with me until he could make his move.

Then I slammed my pen down and ran my hand through my hair. There was too much chatter for anyone to have noticed the sound, but I felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin. Alec's words were getting to me was all that was happening. Tylor could have very well been sick from sitting in the cold since he'd given me his jacket, which I'd found kicked under my bed and had washed it before putting it into my backpack to give back to him.

There were a million important things he could have had going on in his actual life. The girl with the crush was not at the top of it I was sure.

I stretched my fingers before I picked my pen back up and finished my notecards. It didn't matter. I had to focus on myself because it was my part of the deal with my dad. I'd briefly let Tylor distract me, but I wouldn't anymore.

Checking my phone one last time with no message from him, I put it into my backpack with the jacket. He was just a boy. The world was full of them. There were more important things to be focused on. I needed to put his money into my bank account and tell my dad to keep the dress money. It had been silly to let Dove and Amber pressure me into going to the dance. We'd danced in Dove's kitchen the day before. I didn't need to go to the high school gym to experience fun dancing.

After school, I took the public bus to the library to get books for the government project. I'd opted out of working with a partner. I knew everything would get done if I worked on it by myself. The added stress of everyone getting their part done in time was not something I wanted. We were charged with creating our own form of government based on current and past forms, and then write a constitution. It wasn't a particularly hard project, but I wanted to get it done early so it was one less thing I would have to worry about later.

Dove and Amber had been upset when I'd told them at lunch that I wasn't going to homecoming. Izzy had offered to be my date so the price was cheaper, but I'd politely declined. The party drugging was a decent enough excuse for not wanting to be around a big crowd that they didn't protest too much. It was hard to say no to that.

I took the books I found to one of the computers and sat down. I'd fully intended to not get distracted by anything or anyone, but when the entire internet was at my fingertips, I couldn't help but type Tylor's name into the search bar. My dad hadn't said anything about the case that I could remember. Maybe it had been out of his jurisdiction.